The Bull Stops Here - Washington DC spelled backwards is DCBULL®

#HillaryClinton not only raised and spent more money on a failed campaign than any other candidate in history, she and her campaign staff employed a losing strategy from day one.

Estimates show her funds raised in excess of $1.2 billion with some blind estimates pushing it towards $2 billion - a new record. Her campaign has very little cash left in her post election reserve accounts and they shot their entire wad on failed commercial and media buy. On the other hand Donald Trump raised just north of $600 million (some of it from his own funds) and he still retains a prudent cash reserve with virtually no commercial or media buy.

This election had/has “NOTHING” to do with Russian hacking or WikiLeaks, rather it was all about a poorly executed strategy that was flawed from the get go… this was Hillary Clinton's race to win and she alone let it slip away.

Simply put, Hillary and her campaign staff blew a sure thing by underestimating not only Donald Trump but any other player from the opposition, not to mention that she illegally buried #BernieSanders who more than likely beat her or would have beat her in a Trump like fashion. Her excessively negative campaign was devised to cover up years of shenanigans and dishonesty by she and her husband which in turn single-handedly cost her the election. It was here and here alone that Hilary lost votes amongst some of her largest core supporters. When many of her core were polled or interviewed, they suggested they would vote for Hillary, only to step forward later to say they simply couldn't cast a vote in her favor.

That overwhelming majority of former Hillary/Party loyalists either did not vote, or secretly voted for Donald Trump. This is not my opinion, it is evidenced by the sweeping electoral victory as well as the voting statistics state to state.

She never identified what was truly important to the American people, nor did she seem to care about past transgressions, or identify a new path for the future. This left the door wide open for #DonaldTrump to navigate the low road all the way to the finish line. For every rally held by Trump with 20,000 or more people in attendance, those 20,000 yielded the same effect as a multilevel marketing campaign where 20,000 becomes 1 million - I’m calling it AMWAY politics.

Trumps rallies were targeted in the hardest hit demographics of America's sad economy. In turn yielding him the highest strategic voter turnout in key precincts that were largely overlooked, if not forgotten by the Hillary Clinton campaign.

To make matters worse and to really bring reality home, the CIA revealed last week that any hacking done by the Russians which was successful against the Clinton campaign and the DNC, was also employed against Trump and the RNC, but failed as the RNC and Trump had better Technology and more stringent server security.

Basically, everything that could go wrong for Hillary Clinton, did! A failed effort in every way......

On one of my visits to Hillary Clinton's home in Georgetown in 2002, the purpose of the small gathering with Hillary, Bill, John Kerry and a few others was to try to nominate a key congressional candidate named Julie Harris. During this small private session in the Clinton home, I was amazed by the already assumed role she was taking as a shoe in for the White House down the road. Other key players and money people seemed to share that sentiment as well. She was to be the Queen and we were to be her loyal followers.

Even then in 2002, she had established a political action committee called "HILLPAC" which was run by one of her minions named Bari Lurie, who coincidentally now serves as chief of staff to Chelsea Clinton at the Clinton Foundation. Oh what a tangled web we weave!

While I was a staunch Reagan republican in the early 1980s, I have maintained a true bipartisan position in Washington DC since 1986 working with leaders on both sides of the aisle, as well as whoever occupies the White House - I have voted both ways. I only bring that up to say this, I “DID NOT” have a horse in this last presidential election.

Having known the Clintons since 1989 in varying degrees, I have nothing but contempt for them as people, the way they treat others, and their ongoing violations of law that would put any other American behind bars. As for Donald Trump, I first met and had dealings with him in 1987 and found him savvy, knowledgeable, and more well informed than anyone else around him. While I detest many of his attitudes, choice of words, and tirades, I have watched a man over the past 18 months who has had a clear and definitive goal with a plan that was executed exactly as he desired.

Whether this makes him a lucky candidate or a political genius, is irrelevant as he is now the boss. And to those who have a problem with this - GET OVER IT!

In closing, if the Democratic Party and it's future candidates ever hope to reform the publics opinion of their negative tact and approach towards everything, they need to embrace a bipartisan agenda while redefining and rebranding who and what they are.

This will require the lining up of future candidates who were/are not born and bred within the Washington DC beltway.

President Obama was a charismatic Democratic anomaly who took the scene by storm and ultimately did very little in the way of a lasting legacy, real change or a fiscal overhaul after the 2008 banking collapse. He missed an opportunity for true reform, and I believe this was due to his lack of any long term political and business experience. Simply put, he got outclassed by the Wall Street establishment and the International Community.

Obama was further stonewalled by the evil Republican faction led by John Boehner and other Republican leaders who set a a blockade he could never knock down. This left him as one of the most impotent leaders in our Nations history. What can be said for President Obama is that he never lost his calm or his cool and he held his head high and at very least kept the ship steady during a very difficult fiscal recovery. His record was not a sound launching platform for Hillary Clinton, and she further lost her way with poor strategy, bad advice, and the simple fact that most of America just does not like her.

As I have written about in my blog #DCBULL.com for many many years, I believe the two-party system as we have known it is - has been dying a slow death for quite some time. It would now appear that my assumptions were not only correct, but have come to fruition. Donald Trump does not fit a Republican model, rather he has just hung his hat on the RNC logo as a path to the White House.

His victory will most certainly generate a field of nonpartisan candidates in the future, many of which will emerge from the business sector and not the traditional Senate or Gubernatorial launching pads of yesterday. Career politicians cannot and will not ever have a place in running our country again. We have matured past the point of their simple selling of snake oil while delivering no results decade after decade.

Time for true TERM LIMITS - 2 four year terms for both the Senate and the Congress, just as with the White House. New blood, fresh ideas, accountability to each elected officials constituents.

Donald Trump is the President of the United States for better or for worse. Within 2 to 3 years, we will know if his victory will be beneficial for our country or a failed experiment. Until then let's rally the troops from both sides of the aisle, Let’s see if the media will redefine the way they report the news and conduct business in order to help their sagging ratings and readerships, and maybe, just maybe we can get something done.

If not, four years from now Trump will be voted out of office and it will be someone else's turn to raise $2 billion dollars, unless we can enact campaign finance reform and fundraising limits for all elected officials......hmmmm, another battle for another day!

Sincerely yours from the wacky world politics,

Arthur Ekrem

SANDERS & HILLARY & TRUMP - OH SHIT!

BY ARTHUR EKREM - MAY 23, 2016

As we ramp up for this weeks political shenanigans, we have to look at the lingering effect of Bernie Sanders. This guy has balls of steel for a man of his age.

While it seems improbable that he has any chance whatsoever in securing the democratic nomination, many of Hillary Clinton's sins of the past still loom on the horizon. If she were in fact to be indicted on the miscellaneous charges pending, it could create just the crack that Bernie Sanders needs to stick his head into a leading contender position.

The final game changers which will impact not only Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, will be the selection of a running mate and the game changing implications that come with this choice.

We do not have to go to far back in our memories to remember how Senator John McCain’s campaign sunk like a rock after his choosing of Sarah Palin, so the days and weeks ahead are going to be fun filled and news-making to say the very least.

Until we meet again!

ARTHUR EKREM

2016 ELECTION HOT BUTTONS

BY ARTHUR EKREM - MARCH 14 2016

There are multiple aspects that will be hot buttons in the general election.

Most noteworthy, would be the crimes against America by Wall Street institutions and the banking industry. The average American and homeowner has been blatantly robbed and taken advantage of by greedy banks who have been under-regulated and unpoliced.

Next in line would be the exploding cost of healthcare and education, medical treatment and prescriptions are out of reach by way of cost to majority of Americans and especially senior citizens - student debt is leaving graduates in a hole so deep that it will take them 25 to 30 years to retire.

Finally the inability for there to be any middle-class to balance out our society and our economy will be an extremely hot potato during the general election. If we do not restore manufacturing jobs, service jobs and keep companies in America, the future of our country will diminish on a consistent basis.

One would imagine that the threats in the Middle East and Isys would be the real issue, but without a strong domestic platform, we simply will have no revenue left to spend on war efforts.

Over $.60 of every tax dollars collected is allocated towards military spending. We see no long-term return on that investment and our country continues to fall into a third tier category in the eyes of the world.

The Obama administration is preparing to put stopgap measures on what Wall Street will be able to do to consumers by way of limiting what crap products banks and investment firms can peddle on the street, while reducing the exorbitant fees we get jammed with as consumers every day.

This begs the real question, why has it taken over seven years for The White House to finally rein-in the financial products and services market after the Wall Street meltdown. Millions and millions of people in the United States were harmed and continue to be harmed as a result of greedy and unfair business practices within our banking and investment system.

The president has called on the Labor Department to create new rules for investment entities and brokers that will seek to reduce conflicts of interest and hidden fees that currently cost Americans upward of $17 billion from their retirement plans annually.

While this would seem to be a bipartisan matter as it reaches into the pockets of all Americans, the Democrats have quietly been swimming beneath the surface to stall or postpone these measures to correct Wall Street. This should serve as a reminder that virtually every elected official in Washington DC is in someway influenced by our banks and investment houses.

Of course, independent trade groups such as the Investment Company Institute (ICI), work daily to challenge the White Houses economic and fiscal research looking to shoot holes in the presidents suggestions, and claim the White House data is full of errors. This is a consistent strategy used within our bank investment infrastructure that for over 40 years now has caused our system to the erode. The strategy of challenging every solution posed continues to create a bottleneck and causes legislators to ultimately do nothing to help the consumer. Each year, The average investor loses more and more control of the fees they pay, the products that are available, and the lack of disclosure puts the majority of investors in harms way as they never really know what their money is being invested into, nor the fees they are paying.

For the last four years the Department of Labor has been trying to adopt rules designed to rein-in conflicts that lead investment brokers to steer investors into more expensive retirement investments in order to charge higher commissions or fees, when rarely is it in the best interest of the customer.

Three of the leading trade groups, the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, the Securities Industry in Financial Markets Association, and the FSI have collectively spent over 16 1/2 million dollars in the past two years lobbying on this and other issues on behalf of Wall Street according to Senate lobbying records.

In almost every instance we can see where pro-regulatory reform groups fight progress on this front and it is quite transparent and the majority of opposition is being drafted by Wall Street lobbyists.

If the Obama administration has one swan-song that can truly impact our nation and leave the president with a somewhat improved legacy, this would be the battle to fight. To finally have regulatory controls in place which limit Banks and investment firms as to the crap they can sell to the American consumer, and further limit the fees they can extort for selling their garbage, then it will force the major players to present a better product to the American people with full disclosure as to fees and fund performance.

As the greatest nation in the world, so we are told, we simply must fix this problem permanently with swift action, or we risk another major financial collapse within the next 7 to 10 years.…… Of course, Time will tell!

WORLD MUSLIM POPULATION IS DOUBLING - CAN IT BE TRUE?

I have done my share of radio shows and writing about Muslims vs. Christians (see DCBULL archives), and recent reports suggest that the game is evening up as it pertains to population balance between the two religious forces.

A new study released this past Thursday offers concrete data to support the ongoing growth of the Muslim population.

Less than twenty years ago, the world had about 1.1 billion Muslims. Twenty years from now, this new report suggests it will more than double – to represent more than a quarter of the population of the earth.

This is a huge increase from 20 percent in 1990.

Pakistan is blowing by Indonesia as the hot spot for the largest number of Muslims, as its population pushes over 256 million.

And the U.S. is no slouch in this boom either, as the number of Muslims in the United States will more than double, to 6.2 million in coming years – can we hear an Amen for Allah?

The Afghan population will also come close to doubling, to about 50.5 million, making it a war torn nation, with lots of dirt, and the ninth largest Muslim population in the world – you go Afghanistan!

The Jews have serious competition – “Oy Vey” (that means “oh woe is me” in Yiddish)! Israel is on its way to becoming one quarter Muslim. The Palestinian territories alone have one of the highest growth rates in the world. First the Jews had to contend with Jesus and now this – is nothing sacred?

Then we have little Nigeria, where violence between Christians and Muslims has been a VIP party of its own in recent years, where thousands have died in the name of God. Nigeria too, will become a Muslim-majority country in the years to come.

Let us not forget the good people of France and Belgium – these grumpy wine drinking regions will boast more than 10 percent Muslim, while the happy land of Sweden will hover just under 10 percent.

The loser of the Muslim growth game in the next few years will be Iran – that's right Iran, I am sorry Iran, you did not win the new car, but you will get some lovely parting gifts. Iran will see very slow Muslim growth. Iranian women have the fewest children of any population in the Muslim world. Come on now, we have all seen the men from Iran – would you have sex with them? I mean they don’t bathe and they are grumpy as hell. This is not a recipe for a roll in the hay with the old lady after a game of “kill the infidel”. They use birth control at an astounding rate of 73 percent – just another example of the "we are a miserable nation" credo, so the ladies of the nation just say, lets stop populating until we cease to exist.

The global population of the Muslim faith will rise because the Muslim men like to have sex (this actually applies to all men) and have an extremely high birth rate. Not to mention the large number of Muslims of childbearing age, and an increase in life expectancy in Muslim-majority countries.

The sheer boom in the population in Pakistan will lead to an additional 70 million people in the next 20 years – this could create "a potentially lethal cocktail," said Ghaffar Hussain of the Quilliam Foundation, which calls itself an anti-extremism think tank and does work in Pakistan.

"Pakistan is an unstable country, there are literally hundreds of jihadist groups," he said.

The Pakistan government is not doing much to slow population growth, unlike in nearby Bangladesh, he said.

"In Bangladesh they have tax incentives not to have large families. Pakistan doesn't have that strategy - they're not even talking about it," said Hussein.

"More effort should be made to finding some solutions, especially in the border region with Afghanistan," he advised. NO SHIT and I agree, my DCBULL columns have preached this from day one of our war efforts in Afghanistan.

The Pew report, where much of this source data originated from, is more than a year in the making, and part of a major effort by the Think Tank to manage the number of members to the world's religions. The Islam report comes first, and a Christian project is in the works.

Putting aside the growth of the Muslim population, Christianity will remain the biggest religion in the world for years to come. There are more than 2 billion Christians – almost 35 percent of the world population.

The architects are aware that their report has policy implications, but maintain that the purpose of the Pew Forum is simply to provide unbiased data.

"It's not our role to say what should be done," Cooperman said.

What they're aiming to do, one of the project's leader said, is to make sure there's reliable information available.

"There has been a lot of speculation about the growth of the Muslim population around the world, and many of those who speculate don't have good data," said Brian Grim, a senior researcher at the Pew Forum.

"The Muslim population is growing and slowing. Instead of a runaway train, it's trending with the general global population," he said.

In other words, as the balance of Christians and Muslims head toward a 50/50 population split in years to come, it is high time we find meaningful ways to coexist together and accept our differences and spiritual beliefs.

Both sides need to agree that terrorists need to be identified, punished, and stopped at all cost.

I firmly believe that most (a majority) of all Muslims want the BRAND they have been given as to their terrorist leanings, to be removed.

Most Muslims feel the same way that Christians do with regard to terrorist activity and support - there is no place for it.

Only in working together on this issue can we maintain a world where Christians and Muslims can live with an expectation of peace and religious freedom.

Final score in the match between Christian and Muslim – a draw – in other words, we are all winners on Gods green earth!

DCBULL with Arthur Ekrem is the final political word covering all things that are bipartisan and news worthy, with a more candid approach to what is really going on in Washington DC and beyond."

An honest source for what REALLY goes on in Washington DC and the political strategies used by inside advisors and PR experts.

Nothing happens in DC by accident - as Shakespeare wrote, "all the world is a stage, its men and women merely players" - no where is this more true than in Washington DC.